


I Want You to Know (That I Care about You)

by tavrosroofies (troof)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate sexuality, M/M, Vampire AU, Weddings, dubious consent (with regards to feeding), human shiro, sheith reverse big bang, vampire keith, young shiro (who doesn't have everything figured out yet)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troof/pseuds/tavrosroofies
Summary: In a lonely laboratory on the upper floors of the university, Keith works alone to study the stars. He has a couple students who help him, but because of his nature, he never gets to know them well. Until he feeds on Shiro. Shiro always was too smart for his own good.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43
Collections: Sheith Reverse Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for the sheith reverse bang!! Based the whole thing off nessietime's wonderful piece of art you should totally go see [here](https://twitter.com/nessietime/status/1208464760972427266?s=20!)! Thanks to ocean, akemichan, and nessie for beta'ing!

note: 

"A lot of vampires who feel the need to interact with human society instead of spending time on the fringes will take a job with night hours. Nightclub owners are common, as are evening receptionists, dock workers, security guards, and, in rare cases, medical professionals. Owning a nightclub is often the most preferred job because of the large volume of people and the mystique of being privy to another species' nightlife. However, vampires, like humans, are very diverse creatures, and you should not be surprised to find them anywhere, not to mention where you would least expect it."

-from _The Researcher's Guide, Chapter One: Where to Find Them_

KEITH  
in the clutches of morality

Is it wrong to feed on a colleague? His coven doesn't have any laws _against_ it, but still, Keith feels like he's crossing some invisible line.

Don't feed on your friends, consensus says. Don't feed on your family. That feels--the thought of it makes shivers crawl up his spine. It's not incest, but that's way closer than he would ever like to get to any of his family members. Besides, they're long dead.

Shiro isn't either of those. He's just...a grad student. Parsing some images of deep space, like Keith directed. 

But does that mean Shiro looks up to him in any way?

Keith shakes his head and lowers his eye back to the telescope, where he thinks he has pinpointed his star. Keith is his mentor, but they're not...close, in any way. In three years, Keith will have another grad student. And another after that. So no harm done.

It's either that or go pick a stranger off the street, in which case he would have to leave his lab and forget the possibility of finding any stars tonight, and besides, it's just inconvenient. If there's food in your fridge, you take it. You don't go out on a hunt that could take hours and won't satisfy.

Keith opens both his eyes and turns around to appraise Shiro, hunched over the table. In his favorite sweater, focused on something so minute with a cup of coffee steaming next to him, he almost looks like easy prey. 

Shiro could overpower him, definitely, but he doesn't think he would.

"Shiro, come here for a second."

"Hm?" Shiro puts the pictures down and comes closer to Keith, though he's not sure what for.

Keith catches his eyes, and immediately, they go half-lidded and Shiro's face relaxes, as if drunk. 

Keith catches his hand to stabilize him, and draws him in close so he can speak more softly. "I'm going to feed on you. It's not going to hurt, and you're not going to remember it. Besides a small prick, you won't feel anything at all."

He makes sure Shiro nods, and then he drags his teeth right below Shiro's jaw, where he can feel the pulse thrumming strong. God. It's like a river with how much it flows. 

Though, if he wants him to be able to hide it from others, he'd better leave a mark for him under the collar of the turtleneck sweater, so they can't point it out. Keith pulls the fabric away and bites, and he tightens his fingers in Shiro's hair with how good it feels. 

Shit. He's messy. He licks to clean some of the blood that spilled out over Shiro's shoulder, but it still might stain the sweater. He'll have to tell Shiro to clean that.

Shiro whimpers deep in his throat, and Keith withdraws to be able to thrall him again. "It doesn't hurt, remember? It doesn't hurt."

He seals his teeth over the wound again and drinks to his heart's content. His gaze lands briefly on Shiro's lips, but he's not interested in any of that. Assaulting a human under thrall would be wrong, even though some vampires would disagree. 

"Wear this turtleneck until the wound disappears," Keith says. "The wound won't make sense to you, but don't question it. You want it there. It's natural."

Shiro's eyes are a beautiful molten gray. Like mercury.

They go back to work after that, but it's clear that the calm rhythm they had is ruined.

"I'm gonna go home for the night," Shiro announces suddenly, after they log data for twenty minutes. "I just...feel dizzy all of a sudden."

"Do you want to lie down? There's couches in the break room."

"No, I think I had better get going."

Did he take too much? If he did, he doesn't want Shiro to drive like this; he could pass out.

"My house is only a few blocks from here. I think I'll be fine."

A few blocks is enough to pass out on the road.

"Did you at least have a glass of water? Here." Keith fills a cheap plastic cup from the water bubbler in the corner. 

"Thanks," Shiro says, laughing. "Keith, really, I'm fine." But he drinks it anyway.

Without another thrall, Keith can't stop him from leaving, so he interrupts his work again to follow him home anyway, just to make sure nothing happens. He gets home all right.

When Keith gets back to the lab, he sighs. He didn't think he drank that much. He stops when the pulse starts to slow. And Shiro looked strong, healthy.

He feels better now, the ache in his stomach having gone away.

He doesn't feel bad until the next night, when Shiro comes in, and the fluorescent lights accentuate how pale he is. He doesn't say anything; he just seems tired. He moves more slowly. Keith shows him three pictures the satellite took of a nearby nebula and Shiro spends three hours on one image.

Crap. This isn't good. 

He has more students, but only two of them work nights, and one is Shiro. The other one is on vacation.

Keith sighs. After some deliberation, he only has one choice. "Go home, Shiro. You look like you need some rest."

"But I don't!"

"Drink lots of water, eat more red meat…you do!" Keith says as Shiro shakes his head 'no.' "You got dizzy the other day, today you look like it's painful to move."

"I got it."

Keith contemplates thralling him, but he resists, because he hates doing it outside of feeding. It's harder that way, too.

"Fine." Any other student would be thrilled to get a night off. But not Shiro. No.

Instead of working with the telescope, Keith spends the remainder of the night wallowing in his guilt, worrying about the condition of Shiro, and why he inadvertently drained one of the only students that wouldn't go home.

This was so dumb.

Although he might regret it, he thinks he got away with it until Shiro comes in the next day. With garlic on his breath, he says, "You only work nights?"

SHIRO  
one night prior

Shiro knows something's up when he inexplicably feels weak the next day. He's a firm believer in good diet and exercise, and despite his night job he always makes sure he gets enough sleep, so something else has to be the culprit.

It scares him at first, because there's the possibility it's his disease taking hold. Muscular dystrophy isn't supposed to make you feel lightheaded, but it's all so overwhelming to him, he wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Around 1pm he goes to the college gym to try to ease his worries through weightlifting.

"Hey man, what are you doing?" his friend Matt says from under the bar when Shiro takes the bench next to his.

"What do you mean?"

"You're wearing a turtleneck? To _work out?_ I didn't know you were fashion-challenged, Shirogane, but I guess we all have to start someday."

Bemused, Shiro looks down at him and watches him complete a set of six bench press, and he asks himself: _Why am I wearing a sweater?_ It's cold outside, so seemed like the natural thing to do. Guess he just didn't think about another type of jacket for coming in here, which is weird, because he did bring Nike shorts.

"Dude, go change," Matt says as he racks his weight.

"Okay, okay," Shiro appeases him as he goes back to the locker room. He didn't know he would be getting attacked when he went to the gym today, but Matt's right. It's weird that he's wearing a sweater, and he didn't even notice.

Shiro looks at himself in the mirror and contemplates taking it off, but the strange thing is, he doesn't _want_ to. It's cold in there with the equipment. He doesn't want to go in there wearing a tank top. 

Pulling the collar down, Shiro sees two red puncture marks over his carotid. He runs a finger over them to feel where they've started to heal up, but they're too conspicuous to risk abandoning the sweater.

Maybe he'll skip his workout today anyways. He still feels weak from whatever happened last night, and overall, there's no point in working out. No matter what he does, by the time he's in his late 20's, his legs will have atrophied enough to put him in a wheelchair. One day of squats won't put that off by much.

He grabs his water bottle and his gym bag and gets ready to go back into the lobby when he realizes: he can't think like that.

Can't. 

Or this battle is lost before it's already won. 

So he goes out there in his sweater, people staring at him all the while while Matt gives him shit, and he finishes his lift. He doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to do that, so...yeah.

When he's back home, he reflects on the whole experience. He doesn't immediately assume anything supernatural, but he suspects it in the back of his mind. Ever since his arm got shot off, he started researching the location of these "vampires" that everyone's hunting. He can't study astrophysics all the time.

_The Researcher's Guide_ says if you suspect a vampire attack, watch out for signs of inexplicable weakness, pallor, and dizziness. The subject may not be aware he has been attacked because the subject may have been thralled, but the subject may have bite marks on either his neck or wrist.

Shiro's wrists are fine.

Where has he been these past couple days? Every morning he walks home in the predawn light, which is never very much, so one could have taken him on the street? 

Shiro rubs a hand over the prickle of his five-o'clock shadow. Keith said to eat red meat…

Shoot. Keith knows, Keith knows. Otherwise why would he say that? 

So Shiro goes in the next day with garlic on his breath from a particularly delicious pizza and asks why Keith would work nights. Because the way Keith works nights isn't the way most people work nights, where they go in in the evening and emerge sometime before 3, occasionally deigning to show themselves during the day. Shiro has _never_ seen Keith during the day.

And if he isn't a vampire? 

Then this is all just an adventure. One in which Shiro's being silly, and ultimately he'll never have to tell anyone if he is mistaken. Just one really weird experience of feeling like he had to wear a sweater at the gym. 

Just compulsion. And weakness.

KEITH  
cards out on the table

"You only work nights?"

Crap. Keith has had to explain this before to the department chair and the dean when he was creating his schedule, but never to someone who was clearly asking it with suspicion as evidenced by the garlic on his breath.

Thralls get stronger with age, but his didn't work. It's been fifty years, how long is it going to take?

Keith's ears prick up and the hairs on his nape stand on end. A long time ago, he and Kolivan had to kill one of his students who found out. It wasn't that the thrall didn't work; they didn't catch on when he first learned they were vampires, and months later, he came back with a stake. 

It all happened too fast for them to stop by other means. In true elderly vampire fashion, Kolivan stood back and watched with crossed arms as Keith made the first bite, slashing the person's throat open with his teeth, and then Kolivan nodded and finished the man off, who was still struggling in a pool of his blood on the floor.

The Italian telescope they possessed fell on the floor, likely shattering the lenses inside, and as Keith watched, the blood seeped and stained the corner of his charts.

_"That man could have killed you," Kolivan said._

_"I know. But he didn't, I stopped him. We're faster than they are anyways."_

_"I know. But what happens when one comes in here, and he's a hunter with a gun? What if _she's_ a hunter with a gun?"_

_There's been a recent rash of killings from the Hexstabbers group, a group of all-female vampire killers whose method of operating includes seducing their prey to lower their guard first, then stabbing them in the back, honeypot style._

_"You think I'm stupid enough to be taken in by a woman?"_

_Kolivan sighs. Keith knows him well enough to know the next thing he says will be something about Keith's recklessness, maybe how Keith isn't ready, or even_ do you want to burn in the sun again because you get engrossed in your work and forget it comes up?

_But he doesn't. Instead, he says something that catches Keith off guard entirely._

_"I'm about to let you go, in two moons." Keith's eyes almost become the size of them. "You've almost reached that age where it isn't required for you to be under the tutelage of your sire. I have high hopes you after that time comes."_

_"But..you don't think I'm ready now?"_

_"I do. I just want you to be more careful. If this hunter is with a group, they'll come after you."_

Thanks, Dad.

_After Kolivan leaves, Keith grits his teeth. He fishes around in the man's pocket for clues as to any group that he might belong to, and he doesn't drain the body in case they come looking. If they do want the body back, it would probably appease them somewhat to know their friend wasn't used as a blood bag._

_He buries the body in the cemetery that night and waits for someone to come looking, but nobody ever does. He doesn't know what's sadder._

_He doesn't kill people often. In fact, this is his first kill since the accidental ones in his years of feeding frenzy right after he'd been turned. This was his first deliberate kill._

_And it feels awful._

_He doesn't let it show around Kolivan because Kolivan might think he's weak and not let him go after two months, but Keith cries._

_He doesn't know if it's because it's someone he knew, or because it was his slip up that eventually caused him to find out and make this whole thing necessary._

_He had been caught feeding. At that time, he used dark alleyways and sidewalks and didn't take enough care to make sure he was alone._

_He thought he fixed that._

"Are you here to kill me?" he asks Shiro. Shiro's pulse is racing, and he's scared, but Keith doesn't think he's poised to make a move.

"What? Why would I--" 

Shit. From the way that Shiro balks it's possible that he didn't...know...that Keith was a vampire? Fuck. How does he save this one now?

"Oh, no reason, I--it was a joke," Keith deadpans finally. People are weird with those. Saying 'it was a joke' can make up for almost anything.

"So you're not a vampire?" 

Or...he did know. Shiro moves closer and Keith can smell the garlic wafting off his breath. Instinctively, he moves back.

"Uh, no, vampires don't exist." When he says it, he tries to make it sound like the most obvious thing on the planet. He's totally unprepared for when Shiro takes the Exacto knife from the model workshop, rolls up his sleeve, and slices a gash right below the elbow of his left arm using his prosthetic.

"Gah!" The smell of blood catches him off guard, and before he can stop himself, he turns around to face Shiro with his hand covering his fangs. As it so happens, Shiro is looking right at him.

It's instinct for Keith to threaten him by positioning his mouth by his neck so that he can take care of him, if need be, but all that garlic Shiro swallowed makes him want to gag.  
Dropping the knife, Shiro puts his palms up by his chest as if to show he's harmless, but Keith narrows his eyes. Keith can see his Adam's apple bob up and down. 

"Keith, I'm--not here to kill you. I just wanted to know." Shiro says. "I thought we were studying nebula formations tonight."

"We are. _If_ you don't mind working with a vampire," Keith says, cocking his head.

"I don't," Shiro splutters. "Dr. Kogane, I've worked with you for a year. I'm not going to stop now because I found that out." Cautiously, he lowers his hands, and when Keith doesn't move toward him, he reaches over and grabs a napkin from the far desk to staunch his bleeding. Keith tracks the wound with ravenous eyes. "Just...let me know before you feed on me, please?"

It takes a second to register, but Shiro...doesn't do anything to hurt him. Eventually, Keith's own pulse returns to normal and his fangs retract. As he watches, his blood stains the napkin a darker and darker red. He shakes his head. "You're crazy."

"So are you. But in the good way, I think. People call yours 'genius.'"

Keith pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. He really didn't think Shiro looked up to him. Opening them again, he says, "I'm not a genius. I've just been alive for too long." Deflecting. Keith turns back to his computer to click the program.

Still, the smell of blood hangs in the air. 

So, as the Garrison telescope miles away collects light rays from clouds of gas another million miles away, Keith takes Shiro into the bathroom to properly dress his left arm. 

He won't do it himself. Keith practically has to take him by the hand.

As Shiro sits on the plastic chair by the shower, Keith opens the cabinet and pulls out some gauze and disinfectant, kept there specifically for emergencies. 

As he sits there and presses the gauze to the wound, Keith knows he's going to have to thrall Shiro, and do it properly this time, or he could have another situation on his hands. He's enjoying not having to hide from him for these few hours though, just having someone he's sort of familiar with know the true Keith. But the thrall didn't work last time, so maybe Shiro's resistant…

"Why do you still have your sweater on?" Keith asks after a minute of trying to keep the fabric rolled up. "You know, this would be easier with it off."

"I don't want to take it off."

"You can take it off, Shiro."

As soon as Keith says that, Shiro pulls the sweater off over his head, and Keith can see the way his muscles flex and relax. Part of the thrall worked. But why didn't all of it?

As soon as the bitemark is uncovered, Keith presses his fingers to it and goes for another round of disinfectant. Shiro pulls back as if he's been burned.

"I'm just going to clean your wound."

"What wound?"

Keith has to take him to the mirror and show him before Shiro's eyes finally widen and he gets it, sees that there is something on his neck that wasn't there before.

"You...have no reflection," he says to Keith, flabbergasted.

"I know."

He keeps his eyes down and stares at the floor as Keith attends to his neck, and it's brief, but Keith imagines he even shivers one time when his fingers brush over the affected area.

"It's tender," Keith muses aloud, and Shiro jumps and puts his hand to the back of his neck on the side that Keith isn't touching, "but it's healing well."

"Yeah, no, it doesn't hurt or anything," Shiro says, and Keith can feel his pulse racing.

He tapes the bandage into place. He almost empathizes for a moment, but he tells himself he has no business doing that.

Then Shiro says, "I've been looking for you for quite some time."

KEITH  
hears a story

"Your kind," Shiro amends quickly. "I've been looking for your kind for quite some time.” When Keith doesn't respond, Shiro presses on. "I was shot by a .5 caliber Magnum revolver when I was 17." 

They both know .5 Magnums exist in the human world, but they've been modified to become the perfect hunting weapon. 

"The hunter shooting it missed his target, so I got an armful of silver shrapnel when he shot into the alleyway." Shiro raises his prosthetic arm, palm up, and then lets the light shine on it palm down as if he's only seeing it for the first time. "It normally wouldn't be a problem, except the doctor operating couldn't get all the shrapnel out of my arm. Once it became infected, I had to lose it."

Up until this point, Keith never asked about Shiro's arm, but rumor had it he got injured in a gang fight. "How did you know there were vampires?"

"Only the hunter community uses exploding silver bullets. Once we pinpointed the brand, it was easy to track down the manufacturer, and she told us in no uncertain terms that vampires were the only thing that they were useful for."

Keith has heard the horror stories from vampires who nearly met their end by silver bullet. The silver slows you down, first, and it hurts quite a bit, and then, once you can't move from all the pain, the person stakes you, right in the chest.

He'd be glad to never come in contact with one of those.

"Did you get the gun?"

"No, the cops couldn't find anything at the scene after the left. And we never found out who did it, either. Just a human and their...vampire quarry.

"I actually blame hunters more than you," Shiro continues, _you_ meaning all of vampires. "So focused on their goal that they don't care who comes in the middle. I thought if I found you, then maybe...maybe it would all make sense."

"All of what?"

"Everything. It was a freak accident, just--one day, I was strolling along, minding my own business, and the next day I had no arm. No one's prepared for that."

Suddenly, the anger rises in Keith as he washes his hands then shakes them dry over the sink. What kind of hunter would do that? "He must have been a shit hunter," Keith says finally, as he dries his hands on the towel.

"Uh, yeah, if his mission was to protect humans from being injured by creatures of the night, he definitely did not do that." He feels the edges of the bandage, then laughs nervously and rubs the back of his neck. "Wanna go back?"

And Keith...looking at him, Keith sees all the things he didn't before. That he's another living being, with infinite possibilities of future years in his eyes. He recognizes the inkling of attachment he feels for another human, and remembers how every other time it turned out so wrong. Different or not.

KEITH  
in company

But Keith underestimates how nice it would be to have someone let in on his secret; to not have to sneak around behind closed doors.

"Get a good meal?" Shiro asks when Keith comes back late, mouth smeared with blood. He usually cleans it up, but this time he maybe was a little sloppy because there was no need.

"Yeah." Faintly, Keith smiles, and hugs himself with his arms. Shiro smiles, too. "Find any new objects?" He sits in front of their workstation, but he's not doing any work.

"Actually, I was thinking of taking a break for the night and going up on the roof."

Keith isn't going to be the one to deny him.

"Knock yourself out."

"No--" But that's not it, apparently. Shiro's brow furrows like Keith's said something wrong. "Do you want to come with me?" 

He wants to, because he enjoys stargazing as much as the next person, but something in him says this is different. Shiro is the first person in a long time to know that he's a vampire. The first human. And out there, it's just them--no instruments or telescopes behind which to hide.

"Please?"

Shiro extends his hand palm open in front of his body as if he's subconsciously inviting Keith, too. And he can't--he owes it to Shiro after the bad start they had. And he does want to spend time with Shiro, if he's telling the truth.

"Okay."

It doesn't escape him that Shiro trusts him. Either not to kill him or not to do anything stupid.

Keith hasn't been to the roof in a long time. Not since Allura was head of the department and threw frequent star parties. After she left, the area was closed off, marked off-limits by caution tape and padlocked doors.

They make it up with Keith's latent lock-picking skills and Shiro's talent for troubleshooting. Shiro carries a few camping chairs on his shoulder, and with the trapdoor closed safely behind them, Shiro sets them up near the ledge that encloses the perimeter.

It's a cool, clear, peaceful night.

"It's beautiful out here," Shiro offers, and Keith can't help but fall into agreement.

"Yeah." Before Keith sits down, he takes a minute to just look at the sky in wonder.

Orion hangs over them. Not their type of hunter, but still. If he thinks about it, he himself is a hunter of some sort. He tries not to kill humans, but he does still. Hunt them.

"What's your favorite constellation?" asks Shiro.

"Ursa Major."

"Why?"

"Because it hasn't changed over 50 years. It's always right there, easy to find. Sometimes you need that." He needs consistency in this ever-changing world.

"Do you ever get lonely?" The question startles Keith and he visibly shifts his attention away from Shiro. But Shiro seems to notice it, too. "Hey--you don't have to answer that. I was just thinking."

But it feels too close. Does Shiro get lonely? Is he offering to keep Keith company? In a different way than he already does? The question bounces around in his head for a long time thereafter.

When the moon starts to go down, Shiro says they'd better go in. Keith doesn't miss that it's for his own benefit, and not Shiro's.

Sometimes they come out in the evening instead of the early morning so they can have more time to talk. Keith is really awkward at first when it comes to small talk, but the longer they spend like this, the more Keith can feel himself relaxing.

He doesn't miss it, either, how much time Shiro spends looking at him instead of up at the sky. It's not creepy, just--when he looks over at Keith, his eyes flick over his body as if he wants to take it all in, and the way he looks at his face, Keith feels like he's trying to catalogue everything about him that makes him him: the way his nose turns up a bit at the end and if there's a hint of red on his teeth that night left over from feeding.

And sometimes, Shiro doesn't even start to go out, but Keith asks, and Shiro always seems happy to do it. Even if he has a deadline coming up and he's overworked and tired. They're overworked.

Keith develops a fantasy of Shiro taking him into his arms. They just look so warm and strong.

It happens one night when they're similarly overworked. Keith gets physical because Shiro does say he's tired, so he needs a little help getting up to the roof. Keith tries to support him and drag him all the way to the library roof, and when they get up there, they lean against the ledge and they're already close. Shiro wraps his arms around him, and Keith looks up. He would blush at the way Shiro's lungs have gone wild and they're breathing the same air.

His fangs come out, but he doesn't feel like feeding at this time, so he retracts them before Shiro notices. Almost without thinking, he snuggles closer, and Shiro pulls him into his arms, and they rest just like that, watching the stars make their way across the sky.

And it hits him then listening to Shiro's pulse spike that Shiro likes _him_ , and he probably knows him better than the rest of the world.

He goes off by himself that night and just _thinks._ It's amazing to him that someone could feel that way, about him, and it unsettles something in his core.

Because that just isn't _possible._ Especially with him being him.


	2. Chapter 2

"When Akira, the first vampire, got weary of this world, he decided to lay in his coffin and fast for one hundred years until the age passed and the world built itself anew."

-from _1000 Years of Vampire History, Subsection 3 of 12: Famous People_

\---  
note:

"When the Church heard about vampire traditions of marriage, they were outraged that such creatures would defy the institution. But it does follow that since vampires have a different view of time, which can mostly be attributed to their longer lifespan, their marriage traditions would follow suit.

"Except in extremely rare cases, vampire weddings are only valid for 50 years. At the end of this time, vows must be renewed, and there is usually another, smaller ceremony, in which the couple reflects again on their devotion to each other.

"These ceremonies can be conducted with or without the involvement of the coven; the intention is for the bride and the groom or both parties regardless of gender to show that they appreciate each other despite the ravages of time.

"In the case that a vampire marries a human, the marriage holds for the remainder of that human's lifespan unless one or both of the parties wants to separate."

-from _Underworld Traditions, Chapter 6: Marriage_

SHIRO  
all alone

Keith runs. Shiro knows because he comes in to an empty lab the next night and he never arrives before Dr. Kogane. Dr. Kogane is always here, like a light fixture or the permanent way everything smells like overheating electronics. 

"Keith? Keith." He tries a few rooms next to this one to see if he's gone to make a copy or something similar. But he doesn't show up for the whole night.

It's just instinct, how he knows he's gone.

Maybe it's because Keith fed off him, he doesn't know.

But he finds him once again a year later, and by that time, the lab's closed down and all the lenses have collected dust. A little ghost dog comes and leads him to a room in the basement, where he finds Keith asleep in his coffin.

Vampires don't sleep, but they can rest if they need to. In rare cases, they hibernate. If they haven't had blood for too long.

The way he looks when he wakes up...it's not the normal Keith. His eyes have narrowed to slits, and his nails have turned into long claws, whether from lack of maintenance or true animosity, he doesn't know.

His eyes show panic, and he says not once or twice that he's afraid Shiro's going to kill him.

"I'm not here to kill you," Shiro says, once he thinks Keith's calmed down enough to listen. "Just come back, please. We had a good thing going."

"I suppose you've already graduated?"

"I haven't, no. You know it also hasn't been that long." He tells himself that, but he's missed Keith. All in all, it's been something to make the days go by faster.

They stare at each other for a while, Shiro taking his time to take in the familiar sight of the long braid that Keith wears in his hair. It's been such a long time since he's seen it. It's gotten frizzy over time.

"It's really you," he says, pulling the doctor into his embrace.

There's a moment where Keith doesn't know what to do with his hands, but eventually, Shiro feels them wrap around his back and his hug is returned.

After some further persuading, he gets Keith to lower his hackles, and slowly, they make their way back up to the lab. But it isn't the same.

KEITH  


He notices something on Shiro's neck when they get back. It looks just like the mark he left, a long time ago. But there isn't any way it could have lasted that long. Bite marks fade over time. Humans heal.

"Do you see that there?" Keith asks, pointing at the marks.

"Oh, what, that?" 

Shiro laughs nervously and covers the wound with his hand. "That's just, uh, that."

They don't talk about it a lot as they clean up the laboratory and restore everything to working condition, throwing away rag after rag that's filled with dust. Even the lights have stopped working. Shiro flips the switch off and on, but nothing happens. The only thing unchanged is the night sky. 

He comes in a lot with stray bites and Keith knows he's letting other vampires feed on him in exchange for--he doesn't know what he gets out of it. 

It has to have happened at the Heartstring. There isn't any other reliable vampire pick-up place in the area. After him, Shiro must have known what to go out and look for. 

"You know, it's been a long time since I've seen you." 

"It has."

They try to establish something that looks like normalcy, but too much pain hangs between them. Like a pendulum attached to one of their wrists.

Keith knew that Shiro looked up to him and that he cared for Shiro. It was just such a slippery slope that he ran away because it went against everything he's been taught as a vampire.

"My sister's having a wedding, you want to come?" Shiro asks Keith eventually. "I feel like we never seem to get out of this place."

Something inside him squirms and writhes, and...he just doesn't know how to feel about Shiro. He's a diligent worker, and really smart, and he seems to like Keith.

Everything he's learned about living as a vampire tells him that's bad.

"The salt flats. Just under thirty miles from here."

"Would I have to dress up?"

Shiro snorts and slaps his hand on the drawing table. 

"Yes. You would. But it would be good. A change of pace."

He should refuse, saying that he doesn't go out much, and he certainly doesn't go to social gatherings. But what else is he going to do? He can't say no, especially if Shiro is looking at him like that. Keith owes it to him. Shiro looks lighter, and thinner. But he still has that same calm presence underlied by childlike enthusiasm for..almost everything around him. Wonder for the universe. Something Keith wishes he had in spades.

The ‘yes’ he says is a tiny step in the order of fixing things. 

\---

"Do you have any family?" Shiro asks when they arrive hands in their pockets, movement restricted in their formal clothes. They parked five minutes away, so they still have to walk to the wedding site.

"I have a coven."

"How did you get your powers?" 

Bold of him to call them ‘powers.’ But Keith answers the question anyway. "Something called 'quintessence.' Supposedly it's a type of crystal that's found deep in the Earth in specific locations, and it's super rare. The first people who found it were so unaware of its qualities that they didn't even know it was poisonous. It got in the water and infected a whole village."

"Is that what it did?" Keith nods. "And then there were vampires?"

"Uh-huh."

"They don't put that in the books."

"Mostly because it's a legend. Nobody's seen or heard of quintessence ever again outside of that one story. I bet someone just made that up to give us a reason for our existence. Voltron, too."

"What's Voltron?"

"A magic cure for vampirism that no one's ever heard of. They say it's a stone, but again: no one in their right mind believes in it."

"Would you want to be cured, if it were real?"

Keith doesn't hesitate. "You bet. Almost every vampire does."

It turns out Shiro has a grandmother. And a grandfather. Two of them. He meets Romelle, the bride, and then he meets them.

They pass the pavilion up front where the married couple stands, and the aisle is alight with lanterns. At the end of every row of folding chairs, there's a paper cylinder with a light inside that stands out against the darkness. And flowers are _everywhere_. Like a fresh sprinkling of powdery snow.

The woman is elderly and possesses a kind face. It doesn't escape him how Shiro calls her 'Mom.'

Shiro's granddad has a gruff voice and a wide smile. Keith recognizes the way his eyes crinkle because it's the same thing that happens with Shiro's.

If he scrutinizes them both, he can see an echo of Shiro's features. Like an afterimage. Not quite there yet, but vaguely.

He visits with them, a little, and he thinks he's doing well with the slightly awkward small talk until his grandma says, "Now if only Shiro could get married."

And honestly, she may be his grandmother, but she has no right to be saying such things about Shiro. "It happens at different times for different people. Maybe he doesn't want to."

"Oh, he wants to," she says with gravelly certainty. "He doesn't think he'll get to, but he's wanted it for a long time. I would even say he dreams."

"I doubt either one of us will be around for it," Shiro's granddad says under his breath, and his wife slaps him on the shoulder for it. 

"Dad--why? Mom." He doesn't miss the way Shiro winces. He gives her a look like why would you say something like that.

"Why wouldn't he get to?"

"He hasn't told you about his illness?"

"Mom." A firm interjection from Shiro this time as he yanks Keith away. 

Of course there's some more time before the 'I do's' where Shiro has longer and more in-depth conversations with his sister who is actually his half-sister, but after that, everything is pretty straightforward. 

The wedding ceremony drags on, and he knows Shiro gets restless too, because at some point during the reception when they're all eating cake, Shiro grabs him and takes him out of earshot. 

"Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

He follows Shiro but he doesn't know where they're going at first, because they aren't going to the food tables. If he wants privacy, there's nowhere out here to hide because there's no rock formations.

Apparently the port-a-potties exist.

"Why are we back here?"

Shiro puts his finger to his lips. "Sh! Listen."

Keith hears nothing but the muted chatter of guests in the distance and new age music. He doesn't know why he's listening, but Shiro checks around the corners on both sides to make sure no one's coming. 

"Feed on me," he says, starting to undo his tie and undoing the few buttons of his undershirt that are visible above the tux.

"I already fed," Keith whispers. "I'm not gonna come unsatisfied to your sister's wedding. I already ate."

"Well I want you to eat again."

"Why can't we do this later?"

Shiro looks at the wedding a hundred yards away and looks back with a bare throat now; even sated, the vee of his neck is making Keith's mouth water.

"Because we're already back here, why would we do this later?"

“Because it’s more sensible?”

“When have you cared about sensible?” Keith thinks about how many times he’s snuck around at night going into off-limits spaces, and considering how he got this far with Shiro, the answer is practically never.

“Can I thrall you then?”

Shiro looks away like he’s almost reconsidering, so Keith explains how much easier feeding is when you thrall someone. It’s usually exceedingly painful when he doesn’t, just because vampire venom comes out in the feeding and injures the victim. 

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” He tries to be straightforward about it when he does it, only taking Shiro down as far as he needs to to not feel pain. It makes sense that he would be nervous, given how they first started off. “I’m not gonna mess with your memories this time, I promise.”

“I know.”

Eventually, he feels the tension in Shiro’s neck muscles relax, and with that, a lot of the tension he’s been holding since the wedding. He sinks his teeth in until he tastes the first pinpricks of blood, and from then on, it’s all over.

He wants to drain him until he's weak in the morning, and he has to remind himself not to do that because Shiro deserves to be well and whole.

He laps up the blood carefully because he doesn't want to spill any on the tux. He sees that Shiro's eyes are watering, and he tastes a couple of tears too. It's not that he wants to see Shiro hurt. He just wants him so badly, and he doesn't know how to have him in a way that's not damaging.

"Thanks."

Keith can't meet his eyes as Shiro buttons his tuxedo up. There's someone coming, so Keith hides in a port-a-potty while Shiro goes back so they won't be seen returning together. It's a wedding, so he doesn't know why that matters, but he doesn't want to embarrass Shiro. Even though he does seem on edge.

And Keith thought _he_ used to be reckless. 

Keith smacks his lips and tastes what flows through Shiro. That was the first time since _then,_ all that time ago. He didn't even use it, but Keith closes the lid on the toilet, washes his hands, then exits the port-a-potty, letting the plastic door bang shut. He meets Shiro back at the wedding.  


\---

"What _disease?_ " Keith asks when they're alone in the car. 

"I'm sorry," Shiro says, avoiding Keith's gaze, "I guess I should have told you, but I didn't want you to get the wrong idea."

"Wrong idea about what?"

"I've, uh...been in the hospital," he says, leaning on the steering wheel, staring down at his lap before looking ahead and eventually fixing his eyes on Keith again. "I have a disease that's killing me slowly, and uh...I'm told I can be a bit reckless sometimes."

"Did you have this a long time ago when I first met you?" Shiro nods, and again, he won't meet Keith's eyes. "What's the wrong idea I could get?" His voice is approaching hysterical now.  
How long do you have?

But Shiro just shakes his head.

He felt the life bleed out of him but at no other time has he felt such cold spread through his chest. 

"Is it cancer? Shiro, let me drive home, please."

Wordlessly, Shiro gets out, the interior lights come on, and they switch places.

Keith doesn't know how to make him feel better. He draws a blank. There's a cloud that settles over them on the way back to the university. A thick, dark, churning one. 

Keith doesn't know what the bad idea could be except maybe that Shiro was seeking him out for his resurrection powers, but he already knows that's not true. And, he wouldn't care if it was.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Obviously not.

When they get back, they sit in the car. Keith decides he's going to turn Shiro. Maybe marry him, while he's at it, and go full-out in staking his claim. He doesn't know how, or when, or if Shiro even likes him like that, but he regrets--deeply regrets not being close enough to Shiro to be able to heal this pain. Because everything that happened this night--Shiro doesn't have much if he doesn't have him. It's just a--feeling.

For the longest time, he didn't know what he wanted from Shiro, but now he does. He just wants to give him everything. It's as simple as that.

KEITH  
at the heartstring

The next time Shiro doesn't come in, Keith decides to put his money where his mouth is and go down to the Heartstring, the dirtiest, filthiest bar within ten miles of the university.

It's sticky on the bar itself, and not all of it is liquor. He's lucky his eyes can see through this darkness, or otherwise he might be lost knowing where to go. Multicolored lights play over the walls as an export of the dance floor, but Keith pays them no mind. He avoids that corner of the bar altogether.

He finds Shiro under a neon light, fangs deep in his neck from another vampire Keith hasn't even seen around these parts. He's scruffy and doesn't dress well, so Keith doesn't even know why he thinks he deserves to lay a hand on his Shiro.

Keith narrows his eyes. "Let go of him," he says, loud enough to be heard over the music.

The vampire takes another beat to drink, and then slowly, he withdraws his fangs from Shiro's neck and turns to look at Keith. Shiro turns to look at him, too, but the vampire holds his head in place, and his eyes are glassy.

"Keith, I said he could--"

"What's it to you?" the unkempt vampire snaps.

"He told me a half hour ago that he doesn't want to be fed on anymore, so _let him go._ " It's a long shot, because Shiro said no such thing, but this is a rough place. A lot of people who come here looking for a taste of being vampire food find themselves in much worse situations.

"Half an hour ago, he was with me."

"Are you going to let go of him, or not?"

"Sendak--"

He can see the vampire getting up to get ready to fight him, and this could be bad, because he has no idea how old or how strong he could be. Keith can feel a little of it, in his blood, like an electromagnetic field, and that definitely means he's strong enough to hurt Keith.

Without thinking, he grabs a bottle and he's about to smash it over his head, see if he can start a large-scale fight and get one or the other of them thrown out, but at the last second, someone calls over from the other side of the bar, "Hey Sendak! Got another one."

He looks over and expects the human to be struggling in her arms, but he seems to be happily drunk, staggering now towards Sendak with a smile on his face. Keith shakes his head and uses this opportunity to drag Shiro to another corner of the bar, where they won't have to deal with Sendak anymore.

The music pulses loudly behind them.

"What are you doing?" Shiro asks, sounding reasonably incensed.

"You want someone to slash open your throat, you come to me. _Me,_ okay?"

"You? You left me. As far as I know, you don't even care about me. The only time I felt close to you was when you were feeding on me, but I guess you didn't feel that, too."

"You think these vampires care about you?" It's getting frustrating, talking over all this music. And it's disgusting, watching Shiro's blood drip and mingle with Sendak's spit still on his throat.

"No, and I don't need them to." He tries to get Shiro to move toward the exit, but he won't budge. "You know, it's my right to come here and offer myself to whoever I want. I've been doing it for a year."

Mention of the time Keith was away makes him pause. He's right. Keith _wasn't_ here for a good chunk of time, and humans don't see time the way vampires do. He loosens his grip on Shiro's sleeve. 

Shiro turns away to head back to the crowd, maybe back toward where Sendak was. But before he's completely facing away, he turns back to Keith and says, "You gonna stop me?" 

And it isn't...a challenge. It isn't a declaration to make Keith ashamed of impinging upon his free will. It's hopeful, in a way. 

And looking at Shiro, Keith knows this is his last chance.

Without thinking, he forces himself to ignore the blood seeping out of Shiro's throat, and the smell of sweat and smoke, and go for Shiro's lips. Just kiss him, for real, like a human would. And he always thought it wouldn't bring satisfaction to him, given that all vampires do is consume, but he was wrong. He enjoys the feeling of Shiro's soft lips. He enjoys the way that he wants to know him with his tongue. All new.

He pulls away, panting, and presses one more kiss to Shiro's lips, chaste this time. He settles back on his heels. He hopes everything will be okay.

"You know, maybe I wasn't there, but I'm here now. I'm here now." For a good moment, he doesn't know who he's trying to convince more, him or Shiro. Shiro scrutinizes him, but it isn't callous. There's emotion in those eyes, feeling.

Finally, Shiro says, "Let's get out of here," and Keith releases the breath his entire body didn't know he was holding.

SHIRO  
methods

The whole letting himself be fed on by other vampires thing isn't entirely about Keith. Yes, it’s partly because he missed him, and he wanted to find another vampire that could maybe replace him, but it goes deeper than that.

Shiro likes pain, and Shiro likes pleasure, and he thinks it's all because of his disease. He doesn't know what else to do with his life, because it's impossibly short, and this is entertaining. He feels invulnerable, almost. No vampire that feeds on him is going to kill him because he's already been through so much already. If life wanted to kill him, it would have already. It's probably too late for it to happen.

So sometimes, when he goes in, he thinks of Keith, and sometimes, when he doesn't want to go in, he thinks about hating himself. And then he thinks of Keith.

He didn't know where Keith went or for how long, and there was no sense in applying to another university, so he just kind of stayed there. Worked out and went to sleep again, then awoke to be fed on and take a day off from the gym, then went back to maintain as if he was trapped in some sort of gym limbo.

A long time ago, Matt stopped following his schedule. He tried, but with Shiro's low blood count and his schedule always shifting up or out, he couldn't do it. Somewhere in that period, Shiro stopped texting.

After that, when he went to the gym, he was usually alone. A typical workout started with him sitting on the bench and moping. But there were some perks.

_"Hey--are you using that?" An almost lanky man with a towel around his neck and a blue tank top comes up to Shiro and asks, indicating the weight rack in front of him._

_"Oh--you can go ahead," Shiro says, still not making a move to do anything on his own. He's not going to get anywhere no matter how much he tries, so why not watch this guy for a second, he thinks._

_Lance (Shiro later finds out his name is Lance) has the_ worst _squat form he's ever seen. And he does mean the worst, having seen a lot of people mess themselves up over the years._

_Then Lance makes eye contact with him through the mirror and says, "Can you help me?" And it's so weird to Shiro. Broken as he is, he never thought he could help people before, but he'd love the chance to be useful._

_"Sure I can. Bring your feet in a little," he says, adjusting Lance's feet until they're shoulder width apart. "Stick your butt out. It sounds funny, but you don't want any bend in your back."_

_"Like this?" Even doing what he says, Lance still struggles to go down all the way._

_"What if we took some weight off?"_

_"No!" Lance shouts, and immediately reaches toward the weight._

_Shiro chuckles. "If you take the weight off, it allows you to focus on good form. Form is what makes you stronger, and then, over time, you'll be able to lift whatever you want."_

_"And then I can be big like you?"_

_"Something like that." He doesn't want to make any promises._

Helping Lance was one of the few things that made him feel alright. Shiro smiles at the memory.

When Keith and Shiro get back to Keith's basement, stopping for food on the way there and allowing them both time to clean up, Keith says, "I want to turn you." 

The idea of not having to struggle with everything anymore is so foreign to Shiro that he does nothing but stare at him, open-mouthed.

"I wanted to tell you after the wedding, but I didn't think it was the right time." 

What is Shiro supposed to say to all this? Is it rude to turn it down? Does he want a yes? Or no? _Right now?_

"Think about it. You don't have to tell me now," Keith says. It would cure his disease, but a lot of other things would change, too. He doesn't know who he is without this struggle. 

He feels the light weight of Keith's grip on his wrist. Keith's not restraining him, but after they left, he's made sure to keep a hand on him all evening.

"Tell me something. I get that I was gone, but then I came back. Why were you going there, after you had me?"

"I told you, I didn't think you cared about me."

"You didn't?"

"I mean, maybe in a roundabout way, but I didn't think you...were interested?" He looks at Keith and hopes that what he is saying makes sense. "I still don't think that anyone who cared could have gone and left someone for a year without even saying goodbye. And, I mean, you never kissed me before. How was I supposed to know?"

Keith takes a deep breath and sighs. "I was afraid to be in love. And I had a feeling that with you it would be all too easy. So I kept you at a distance. That's why I ran." Shiro blinks several times.

"I thought you were afraid--" 

"I was afraid we were getting too _close_. I didn't think of what it was going to do to you." That was a year of not knowing where to go, and feeling like he didn't know what to do--

"So you sent Kosmo?"

"Yeah."

Keith takes his hands off Shiro briefly to rub them against his jeans, and Shiro takes a moment to squint and figure out if he feels sorry for Keith right now. And the worst part is, he knows he does. He would forgive Keith for anything.

"He's an adorable little ghost dog," he says noncommittally after he adjusts his collar around his neck and then crosses his arms.

"He's not that little."

"Oh, I know."

Suddenly, Keith fists his hands in his shirt in a way he doesn't think is intentional. It catches him off guard, but he goes with it and lets himself be pulled in. He rests his hands on Keith's shoulders and fits his hands around the curve of them. 

"Anyways, I just want to make it up to you, I don't want to lose you, I'll do whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" He almosts lets go of Keith's shoulders in shock.

Keith nods, a little furrow between his eyebrows.

It occurs to Shiro he must have really hurt him if he's begging.

"You're lucky all I want to do is kiss you."

"Okay."

Keith moves his hand up to Shiro's shoulder and meets it with the other one, leaning up to wrap both arms around Shiro's shoulders and bring him inwards. Shiro uses his own hands to map the expanse of Keith's back and pull him closer as their noses meet.

Keith doesn't have the warmth that most of his previous partners had, but he does have the enthusiasm. That more than makes up for it.

"Fangs out?" 

At first, Keith's stops moving his lips, alarmed, but then he lets his fangs out slowly, and Shiro traces them with his tongue. He pricks himself once or twice and chuckles to feel Keith suck his tongue, drawing out what little he can.

"Good?" 

Keith nods, and Shiro changes the angle to go at it again.

He's noticed a lot of vampires don't kiss, from what he's seen at the Heartstring. Maybe it isn't accepted there, or maybe they don't do it casually like humans. Whatever the case, a lot of their sexuality seems to revolve around blood, and blood-drinking. This was only a recent realization, though, especially after he asked one of his hookups.

 _That doesn't mean it isn't pleasant, though,_ the man had said. _It just isn't a habit._

Still, he wants to make sure the kiss is nice for Keith, and he's not just doing it for Shiro's benefit. He pulls back and says, "You like that?" against Keith's lips, and as an answer he gets a left fang sunk into his bottom lip, something that hurts very much.

"Ow!"

"Sorry," Keith says, doing everything he can to quickly stop the bleeding. Shiro doesn't really need to lose any more this night, but to Keith, it's okay.

\---

The next night they visit Shiro's abode, because Shiro wants a bed.

"Can I feed from your femoral artery?"

"Can I suck your cock?"

They're in Shiro's bed currently, as Keith doesn't have one. At that question, Keith, previously so confident kneeling over Shiro who’s relaxed against the headboard, looks away.

"You know, I can't exactly...get really hard."

Add that to the list of things he needs to know before he gets turned. That would be a shock to learn firsthand.

After they're done experimenting, Shiro asks if there's anything else he needs to know before he's turned.

"Well, you're going to be with me. For at least the first ten or fifteen years, that's not debatable. As a young vampire, you need someone to teach you and guide you." Keith's already told him about the horrible bloodlust. "That doesn't mean romantically, it just means you can't leave. It's too risky to let another vampire raise you. I am a product of that."

Shiro wants to ask what's so bad about Keith, but he's assuming Keith will tell him eventually.

"And after that? From my readings I know a sire's connection with his protégé doesn't disappear...it stays in the body for years as long as they both are alive." Keith nods solemnly.

"So I'd basically be committing myself to you for eternity?"

"--No. After fifteen years, you're free to go, and even after we bond, the only difference you'll notice is that it'll be a little more intense when I touch you, and you'll pick up on my thoughts sometimes. A lot of people have made vampires for non-sexual reasons. Think during times of sickness, or mother and son."

He's lucky they're finished, because if they weren't, Keith would have effectively killed his boner.

"But what if I wanted to be with you for eternity? Would you have that?"

In asking that, he expects Keith to backpedal--say maybe "Whoa, Shiro, we're only talking about turning you first, let's get that out of the way." Or laugh and play it off. Eternity is a long time, after all.

"Yes."

"What?" He doesn't expect the quick ‘yes’ he gets with no hesitation.

"Unless--you don't want to?"

"No, Keith--" he sees him start to crumple, so he puts both hands on his shoulders and makes sure he's looking at him. "I just want this to be for more than saving my life, okay? I want this to mean something."

"It can mean something. It can mean whatever we want it to mean. Unless you wanna--you know...get married, too."

"We can do them together."

"Let's do one _sooner_ rather than later, okay? It's not romantic if you're slowly dying."

At this, Shiro chuckles internally. Keith has a way with words.

It seems fast even to him, but Keith's turning him. That's a major life change. What else is he going to do? 

At least the reading he did on wedding traditions isn't going to go to waste. When he was looking for information on hunters and vampire culture, he found a wealth of knowledge. Marriage just happened to be a category.

\---

In the spring, Keith makes sure he has everything ready so that Shiro graduates, and even with the short nights, Keith and Shiro find time to propose.


	3. Chapter 3

note:

"To strengthen the bond between the new initiate and their significant other's coven, the tradition of First Hunt was developed. Ever since the first vampires started getting married, it was expected that the newly-married vampire would go hunting with their spouse's coven. This was especially important because vampire-human couples were common, and it was also common for that human to have no connections to the vampire world after they were turned except the one to the person they loved. First Hunt was designed to help counter the initial bloodlust young vampires feel as well as build trust between the new initiate and the coven.

"As the number of vampire-vampire couples began to rise, the event was modified to where both families would go hunting together, if both the newlyweds were not from the same coven. In the case that both vampires were from the same coven, the coven would usually go out together just for the sake of going out. The experience would by nature be less formal and the atmosphere more jovial.

"Humans may be fed on, but not killed. Early vampires realized that if a large percent of the population in the morning showed up dead or were found missing, that would be the end of their peaceful existence as they knew it. So they decided to implement this rule.

"Of course, the spouses get to hunt together too. There is many a tale of a man and a woman or two women who would not leave each other for the whole night, despite trying their best to forge their own relationships with prominent members of the other's family."

-from _Underworld Traditions, Chapter 6: Marriage_

\---

~1 year later~

\---

"Mmm, how about a public apology?" 

"A public apology?" Keith nearly hurls his notecards at Shiro. "I've said sorry to you at least fifty thousand times. I even let you thrall me." Shiro looks so smug sitting with his foot propped up on his knee in that fancy, high-backed armchair. Keith sticks his tongue out at him instead. 

"I don't know, I think people need to hear the story of how we first met."

"Yes, but not when we're saying our vows," Keith emphasizes. This whole thing has him exasperated.

He bets Shiro's written his already. Overachiever.

"All right, so…you say your vows and then I say mine, and then the head vampire says 'you will now be together in eternity?’" Keith had insisted on going first, after everything Shiro's been through.

"Not quite." The last time he looked at the traditional script, it was a little bit different. "The coven leader says, 'Do you accept this man to be yours for eternity?' And then I say yes, and then he turns to you and says, 'Do you accept this man to be blah blah blah I get it,' and then he'll say _vrepit sa._ "

" _Vrepit sa?_ "

"The killing thrust. The congregation will repeat it, and then that's when we tear our collars off and drink from each other."

"No, but what does vrepit sa mean?"

"It means 'killing thrust.' It's from the Czech. In archaic Czech, the word "vpeřit" means 'to thrust violently,' especially with reference to our eating habits. Might even be where the word 'vampire' came from."

"Huh." Shiro flashes his fangs and his eyes flash red along with it ever so faintly.

"You love those things," Keith says, referring to his fangs.

"I do. And you and your linguistics." 

Keith leans over to touch one while Shiro continues searching for relevant pages in his Underworld Traditions book. Shiro even lets him; he holds his mouth open while Keith pretends to prick his finger on a specially sharp incisor. "Are we gonna kiss?"

Keith plants one on Shiro right there, and it's loud in the room. "You bet we will. Even at the rehearsal, with date still to be determined." He checks his wrist and his stylish non-imaginary watch. He didn't use to wear one, but ever since they started planning things, it's become indispensable.

Shiro is huge on PDA. Like, huge. He could write a love letter to PDA if he wasn't busy doing it all the time.

"You think the rehearsal will go smoothly?" Shiro asks.

"I sure hope so," Keith says, and he curls up with Shiro and his book.

\---

"So how are we going to conceal it from your family that you're getting married to a vampire?"

"My family already knows," says Shiro. "It's a couple of my friends that I'm worried about."

"So we'll thrall them after the wedding. You're not wearing your prosthetic," Keith says as he notices that Shiro wears his black shirt pinned up around the stump.

"They're doing something to the inlay at the jeweler's. I'm assuming by the big day I'll have it back." Not everyone they deal with has exactly been… _punctual_ with their arrangements.

There was a concern at one time that Keith's coven and Shiro's family would either eat each other or hate each other by the time they got together, but now, in the Grand Hall, they seem to be doing nothing of the sort. Everyone's just bored and waiting to get out.

Keith and Shiro stand by the altar, Keith in his red corset and and Shiro in a gray vest, and the head priest stands in and ties their hands together with yarn that's supposed to represent the red string of fate. They have their collars on and everything.

He recites the script precisely as expected, then with a long, dramatic wheeze, says, " _Vrepit sa._ "

" _Vrepit sa,_ " a hundred voices murmur. The audience repeats it after the priest's cue.

"Are we supposed to practice the sharing of blood?" Keith whispers. He wants just the priest to hear, although half the congregation can probably hear him. Hearing also gets better with age.

"You should. Just so you don't mess it up."

Simple thing. They've done this several times before, so it shouldn't be a problem. Keith strips off the collar Shiro wears very carefully and starts drinking.

What he didn't anticipate was how painful being fed on could be for someone without the thrall.

"Ouch--" Shiro yelps, but he doesn't pull away--just digs his fingernails into his palms and starts taking deep breaths. He can't see his face, but he would bet his eyebrows are pinched up in an expression of pain.

He pulls back so his lips brush against the skin of Shiro's neck, but in a way that doesn't let too much flow out.

"Am I hurting you?" 

"No."

"I'm not convinced."

"This isn't that bad," Shiro says, voice strained.

"It isn't, huh?"

"No, I've had way worse than this."

"Well, gee, I sure hope losing a little blood via vampire isn't as painful as having them take off your arm."

Shiro snorts, and more blood drips down his neck. Keith stoops to lick up the rivulet before  
it sinks into Shiro's collar.

Someone whoops, and Keith goes to silence them. Then he has to pause and finish drinking from Shiro because berating another human just doesn't lend itself to stopping blood flow from a wound. Neither does talking while trying to feed. Sheesh.

"Do you think you could be a little more clean during the wedding?" Shiro asks. He's going to have to use stain remover to get the blood out of their vest now, too, because this is a dress rehearsal.

He shrugs. "Probably. Maybe."

\---

"Augh--!" Keith cries out as Shiro feeds from him. They're alone in their private study, fire raging.

"Never heard you make that sound before."

Overwhelmed by sensation, Keith is unable to do anything except wind his fingers deeper through Shiro's dark hair. Shiro positions himself over top of him in a way that's considerate. Just enough to share warmth, but not so much that he crushes him by weight. His knee is gentle between his thighs on the chair.

"You--are the love of my life, what sound am I supposed to make?" he says, but his voice shakes.

"Just that one. That one's good."

Keith _doesn't_ softly whimper, and they spend the night trading caresses and kisses. He's convinced there's nothing on earth that could be better than this.

\---

The stone Shiro gives Keith is one in a million. The thing is, vampires don't really do rings, but the one thing Shiro remained steadfast on was the ring.

He presents it to them while they're on the rooftop blanketed under a canopy of stars.

"Wow," Keith says, when he takes it from Shiro's hands and turns it over in the light. It's multifaceted. Rainbow. A different color shines through each facet. "What stone is this?"

"It's been in my family for ages. But I'd be shocked if any of us knew."

He gives it back to Shiro, who puts it in his pocket. They may be able to incorporate it into their wedding. It isn't yet too late.

SHIRO  


It didn't always go this smoothly, though. One story they tell at the pre-party is how Shiro was received when he first met Keith's coven. Everything is good now, so they can all laugh at it. In fact, Shiro's going hunting with them tonight.

They had to meet the coven eventually, so one day, they both made use of their vampire powers (i.e. strength and lack of need for oxygen) to simplify the trek to the highest point in town. 

_Back at the mansion, Keith leans his head against the wall. They call it a mansion, but it isn't that, not really--it's more an old-style inn they have up on the hill that's been running for centuries. This inn has stories upon stories. The local population thinks it's haunted, so any strange activity can be explained away by "ghosts." He pulls the iron keys out of his jacket and unlocks the door._

_Shiro's been here before, but not...as his fiancé. Not as a newly-minted vampire._

_It warms his heart that Keith doesn't make him wait, because that means he knows Shiro is just as formidable as he is._

_Still, Shiro stays a pace behind him as he walks across the converted ballroom with high-backed chairs arrayed like thrones near the center. He sees coffins around the periphery. Nice._

_Keith whispers something to the man with a long braid in the chair that isn't facing them. Whatever he says, it must be really quiet, because Shiro can't hear anything at all._

_"YOU CREATED A VAMPIRE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?" the man's voice booms._

_"Kolivan," Keith protests, but Kolivan silences him with one hand._

_"I should kill him," he hears him say, and Keith instantly looks back to where Shiro waits._

_He feels a hand on his neck and he jumps. Yes, he can hear footsteps, but the theatrics going on in front of him are so startling he nearly forgot about everything else. "Who is this?" He dares not turn around, but it's a female voice, short and clipped._

_"Krolia. Please don't let Kolivan kill Shiro."_

_"Don't drag me into this."_

_"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," says Kolivan._

_"We're in love."_

_Kolivan groans and rubs his face with his hand._

_Gosh, is it really that bad?_

_Then Kolivan grumbles something else about teenage vampires and what a burden they are, and it's minutes before the hostility drains from his voice._

_Something soft brushes against his leg. The brushes continue, and a collar jingles. But he doesn't see anything. "That's Kosmo," Keith whispers. The ghost dog from last time. At least someone's on his side. As Kolivan rages, he leans down to pet it and it placatingly circles around Shiro's leg._

Together with Keith, he explained how they met along with the finer points of the disease he used to have, but it was not a pleasant interaction.

Kolivan and Krolia eventually accepted him, but not having met older vampires like that before, the experience was decidedly nerve-wracking. He met two others who hang around the mansion too, Antok and Regris, but Krolia was definitely the warmest. He could _feel_ the power coursing through their veins.

Once Shiro puts down the microphone, Keith sidles up to him in his nicest suit, blood wine in hand, and tells him why he did that.

"They don't meet many humans they're not drinking from, so when they do, it's quite an event."

"Why didn't you let them know before you turned me?"

"Because there's a rule in my coven that says vampires less than a century can't sire other vampires. Kolivan thinks they'll turn out feral."

Shiro remembers his own feeding frenzy and how Keith struggled to help him through it, and he honestly doesn't think that's such a bad idea.

"I'm probably the reason for that rule, to be honest. I was feral, after my unknown sire left me for dead and Kolivan had to raise me. That was kind of someone else's fault, actually."

"I didn't want _them_ to offer to turn you, which is sometimes another option. You're _mine_."

KEITH  


The real wedding is much more somber. Chandeliers glitter in all four corners of the room. Shadows bounce off the walls and the high ceilings, curled in their representation of designs that block the light. 

The black steps are austere that lead up to the stage, where a square archway stands trimmed with red flowers and beads that hang in orderly rows where the space is empty. They, too, glitter in the low light. Everything has a red tinge to it, like the whole room is bathed in blood and nobody's listening.

And velvet. Lots of velvet draperies.

When the deli master finally brings out the triple-decker red velvet blood cake the kitchen made for his wedding, all of Keith’s nerves fizzle and pop like static inside him.

Shiro catches it. Like he catches everything. "You okay?" he asks.

Keith nods and Shiro brings him into his chest. He might be 78, but sometimes Shiro, with his limited life experience, knows exactly what to do.

Matt is there, and Lance who also knows Shiro from the gym, and Romelle and her brother. On his side, he has Kolivan, Krolia, Antok, Regris, and Kosmo. Nowadays, Kosmo usually shows up wherever there's people, but he'd like to think his old dog is here for his wedding, too. And Hunk, who made this delicious food. Even Pidge, who was one of his students who graduated earlier.

"Pidge is related to Matt," Shiro leans over and says, and Keith still can't get over how he's half a head taller. How is this man so perfect?

"I didn't know that," Keith says, but he's dazed. 

They're about to walk the aisle together, and break every single tradition that demands they walk up separate.

But it's okay. Keith needs Shiro.

Once the audience lights their candles, Keith clasps Shiro's hand and interlaces their fingers, and they walk up the aisle together. He sees the altar right in front of him, but he doesn't even reach it--

CRACK!

A gunshot sounds throughout their sacred hall.

On impulse, Keith looks over at Shiro, and what's he's seeing..doesn't make sense. It's Shiro, but frozen, and with his face contorted in an expression of pain. 

He looks at Shiro's back, and sees the silver stuck into his body that's already making its way through his veins. The stake comes next. He's on high alert searching for where it's coming from.

"The stone! Grab the stone!" 

Huh?

Two women he's never seen before come at him and Shiro from opposite ends, and before he realizes there's more than one of them, one runs up to Shiro and like a blur, stabs him in the chest. 

Kolivan tackles her and someone unknown gets the other one, but not before Shiro collapses on the ground. 

It's over. Just like that.

Blood spills from Shiro's mouth, and it's all Keith can do not to cry. In front of all these people.

"Get the stone!" Someone hollers. But it's a familiar voice this time. Mom. "Get the stone!"

It occurs to him almost too late that the reason Shiro was shot when he was 17 probably wasn't because a hunter was being an idiot. It was because Shiro had something he wanted. 

_"What's Voltron?"_

_"A magic cure for vampirism that no one's ever heard of. They say it's a stone, but again: no one in their right mind believes in it."_

_"It's been in my family for ages. But I'd be shocked if any of us knew."_

The ring. The ring that Shiro was supposed to give him. He reaches inside his pocket and fishes it out. In the chaos that abounds, everyone trying to figure out where the hunters came from and whether there are more, he's basically alone. He doesn't know what to do at this point, so he just stares at it.

"A stake in the heart of a vampire will surely kill him, but if you have a ring that makes him human, it might heal some of the damage." 

Right.

He's grateful that people are here to help him. 

Without wasting another moment, he pulls the stake out of Shiro's chest, being careful to remove any large splinters, and he slips the ring onto Shiro's left ring finger. Tearing off the damn collar, he lays his ear against Shiro's pulse and listens. Faint, but there. He takes Shiro's ring finger in his hand and hopes that pressuring the stone against the skin will make the transformation happen faster.

Humans are resilient. He knows that.

So he holds Shiro's hand and waits for him to become human. Warm blood, blunt teeth, penetrable skin. Of old times reminiscent.

The coven has doctors, all of which are light years better than the ones Shiro had access to on the street. They can pull out the silver and see if there's any damage to Shiro's heart. How far the stake got.

It's surreal, but the fangs fade, the color comes back to Shiro's cheeks, and when he's stabilized enough so they can x-ray him, he's beginning to gain back something resembling normal digestive function.

\---

"I don't believe it," Regris says to Keith later.

"I can't either."

His whole coven is in shock.

\---

It changes everything. It changes the future he and Shiro thought they could have together. What if Shiro decides to be a vampire? What if he decides to live as human? What if _Keith_ has the option to live as human? He already left his coven to be on his own, but what if he leaves them for real to be with Shiro?

 _We were going to go hunting together,_ he thinks. But of course, that isn't everything. He'll choose whatever Shiro chooses, that's non-negotiable. 

But this ring...he looks at the ring on Shiro's finger against the sheets as his chest falls up and down and watches the light glint off the surface. They don't know anything about the limits of its power. Whether it was one-use, or infinite use, or if there are any horrible side-effects. It wasn't supposed to exist, for goodness' sake.

In the candlelit darkness, Shiro cracks open his eyes just enough where Keith can see him.

"Keith…" he whispers, then closes his eyes again.

"Takashi." Keith ghosts his hand up his arm, and tickles the fine hairs there. "We're married, you know."

Shiro falls back asleep.

KEITH & SHIRO  
get married

Technically, they're not married. The head priest never finished the ceremony and they never made it to the altar. No vows were exchanged, no hands were fasted. 

In a way, they're right where they began, but it's better somehow.

Keith wears his bat pajamas that were given as a gift in the wedding registry, and Shiro would change, but he's in too much pain. They have a matching set.

Keith snuggles up to him and marvels at the warmth radiating off his skin. "Okay, are you ready?"

"Yeah." 

Shiro and Keith both nod as they turn their attention to the priest who is now standing over them at the side of the bed. The beds here are old, being of the style that has a canopy and requires a stepping stool to get up on top of the mattress, and the wallpaper is inlaid with gold.

The wedding party has gathered in the room, all fifty-some-odd people, and there's barely enough room to make it to the entrance. Feet shuffle on the weathered hardwood floor.

The elderly priest turns his attention to Keith first, as they agreed upon before. "Keith Kogane, do you accept this man to be yours for eternity?"

"I do." There is no hesitation in his heart as he clasps Shiro's hand and presses their palms together.

"Takashi Shirogane, do you accept this man, Keith Kogane, to be yours for eternity?"

"I do."

Keith's heart skips a beat to hear Shiro say those words. He's sure Shiro's heart does something similar.

" _Vrepit sa._ "

" _Vrepit sa,_ " the crowd repeats.

He doesn't want to hurt Shiro at this time, so instead of drawing blood from his neck, he leans over and kisses his pulse point, soft and delicate. 

"Now you," says Keith. He pulls the collar of his shirt down so that Shiro can access his carotid. Instead of biting, as he only has human teeth, Shiro nibbles gently and puts the collar back. Keith sits back on his knees. 

Collectively, everyone "awww's," and Keith's cheeks burn with an internal flame that because he's undead he doesn't remember having. Shiro's cheeks have a dusting of pink, too. _Good,_ Keith thinks. For once, Shiro has the decency to look embarrassed, but it doesn't last long at all.

"How about a kiss?" Shiro asks. And oh, yeah. They did agree to that.

"Fine," Keith says, grumbling, but when he does kiss Shiro, it all feels better. Because right now, no one matters except them.


End file.
